#iphone 17 — Modernist Delights

CIS Tower and New Century Hall, Manchester, 2026

A city street with cars driving and tall, modern office buildings with glass windows under a cloudy sky. To the right, an older stone building with a curved façade is visible. Pedestrians walk on pavements and zebra crossings in the foreground.

Lancaster Telephone Exchange (Rear), 2026

A beige, two-storey building with vertical panels and narrow windows stands behind a stone wall. A blue sign is attached to the wall, and a rubbish bin is visible in front. Some plants grow to the right. The sky is clear and blue.

Who wants to do the whole “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” from the balcony of the Lancaster Telephone Exchange with me?

Preston railway station, 2026

A covered railway station platform with yellow safety lines. Three people wait: one walks, two sit on a bench. Signs show platforms 4 and 4C. Overhead glass panels let in daylight. Tracks and brick buildings are visible in the background. Trees line the area.

Railway symmetry on my day off.

Telephone House, Lancaster, 2025

A boarded-up, beige four-storey office building labelled TELEPHONE HOUSE stands on a quiet street, with a yellow skip in front. The windows are broken or missing, and leafless trees line the pavement. The sky is partly cloudy and blue.

A five-storey, rectangular, tan-brick building with many windows, some boarded up, under a blue sky. A metal fire escape is attached. The building looks abandoned, and some lower windows are damaged. Neighbouring buildings and trees are partially visible.

A large, abandoned brick building with boarded-up lower windows, many broken upper windows, and overgrown vegetation in front. A metal fire escape is attached to the left side. The sky is blue with clouds.

A black SUV is parked beside a fenced building. The sun is setting behind a brick building with metal staircases. Shadows and reflections are visible on the windows, and the sky is partly cloudy with yellow and blue hues.

Telephone House, once home to a BT customer service centre, received planning permission for conversion into apartments in 2024, alas, the apartments did not materialise. Until then, it’s just a source of phone signal woes.

One more interesting tidbit, from the article above:

During the Cold War, the basement of Telephone House housed an emergency bunker to be used in the event of a nuclear strike on the Lancaster district. Although the bunker didn’t ‘officially’ exist, it was common knowledge amongst staff who worked there until the basement area was cleared towards the end of the ’80s.